This total body routine focuses on using multiple muscle groups from upper, lower, and core — all at the same time — to give you an awesome comprehensive workout in a very short period of time.

Though this workout is hard even without extra weight, we have included the use of dumbbells to get even more strength and toning gains as wells as a bump in calorie burn, of course. If you don't have dumbbells, feel free to get creative, as you can use pretty much any weighted object in place of dumbbells as long as you can hold it in your hands.

By focusing on multiple muscle groups at the same time, this routine has many added benefits aside from just increasing strength and burning calories. One of the most beneficial side effects is that this type of routine can build coordination and balance and even improve your body's ability to determine its spatial orientation, its proximity and orientation from one limb to another, and from your body to surrounding objects. This may seem trivial, but having an improved ability to perceive where one's body is in space is what makes elite athletes so agile, fluid, and able to move easily from one type of movement into another. Though this routine by itself will not make you an elite athlete, it is most definitely a step in the right direction.

What most people will be excited about rather than improved spacial orientation, is the fact that when you work multiple muscles groups at the same time you also increase your ability to burn calories. Keep in mind that because of the use of dumbbells, the number of calories burnt per minute can be greatly different depending on the amount of extra weight you are using (if you are using extra weight at all). With that said, the following average calorie burn can be lower if you don't use weight and can be higher if you use really heavy weight (over 20 lb for any given exercise). The average burn you can expect from this workout is 8 calories per minute on the low end and closer to 14 calories on the high end — and that includes the warm up and cool down in that average. That will give you a total of 320 to 560 calories burnt with this 40 minute routine.

Below is a written version of the video above showing which exercises are used. Remember, this workout also has a warm up and cool down not shown here. The main routine is done in an AB, AB format with two exercises at a time, each being done for 10 repetitions each twice through.

Reverse Lunges + Three Rear Leg Lifts
Clean and Press

Step Up + Knee with a Curl to Overhead Press
Single Leg Assisted Lunge with a Static Curl

Weighted Bridge
Static Bridge with Chest Fly (or Chest Press)

Static Bridge with a Skull Crusher
Single Leg Oblique Jackknife (weighted)

Deadlift with a Close Dumbbell Row
Calf Raise with Alternating Side Leg Lift